Howdy, y'all ...

[jakeforddaniels]

Just wanted to say hello and whatnot -- I'm a longtime gamer, had this closeted love for old maps since I can't remember when, and now I'm trying to settle down and get some stuff outta my head.

I figure that the best way to design a world is to take something you love -- be it an idea, a place, a person, a moral, a story, whatever -- and build the world to fit it. Tolkien had his Elven language, right?

So my most recent ... "thing" ... has been cities. I'll probably be poking my nose into posts that talk about city design, building structure, urban demographics, that kind of thing and then posting some ideas and maybe some scans onto the site.

I'm currently without a computer, as my laptop has developed a 1-in-7 motherboard issue that's being repaired by HP up in Tennessee as we speak, so I'll be posting and searching about via work computer for a while. Also, since we're talking about technology, I'll go ahead and say this: most of my stuff will more than likely be ink and paper, at least until I can get my laptop and software back. I used to build houses, and am a photographer now: thus creation of something by my own hands greatly appeals to me.

Yeah, so there you have it ...

[ravells]

Welcome to the Guild Jake! I'm looking at citybuilding too and have an article in progress about it - you can find it here.

Other resources recently mentioned are:

medieval city demographics by S. John Ross

and

The online population generator

Hope you find them useful and start posting some maps once you get your computer back!

[Midgardsormr]

Welcome! We loves us some hand-drawn ink work, so don't be shy with that. As ravs said, we've had lots of discussion on city mapping lately. To his links, I'd like to add:

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=828

...grrr... I thought there was another relevant thread, but now I can't seem to remember what it was. Ah well, what's been posted will probably be a good start for reading. And by the by, S. John Ross is also an occasional poster here. He goes by Ghalev (and I'm ashamed that it took me until just a couple of weeks ago to make that connection!)

[Steel General]

Welcome aboard!

[ravells]

S. John Ross is Ghalev???

I didn't know that!

Bah, all this name changing is confusing, I'm ravells in most places and ravs in others.

[NeonKnight]

Welcome to the Guild!

I am NeonKnight everywhere that matters

[Midgardsormr]

S. John Ross is Ghalev???

I didn't know that!

Lol. I had the same reaction. What's really funny is that I'd connected him to the woodcut sea tutorial, but not to the Medieval Demographics article, even though the same name is associated with both.